THE Nigeria Stock Exchange is in the news again for the wrong reasons. What began like a personal disagreement between the Director General Professor Ndi Okereke-Onyiuke and its President of Council Alhaji Aliko Dangote has resulted in the forced exit of the Exchange’s leadership by the Securities and Exchange Commission, SEC.

IT is rightly said that politics is a game of number, conflict and compromise. It is a game of transitory alliances but permanent interests, even when there are no permanent friends and foes. In the entire nation as the year 2011 is fast approaching the political fervour is increasing, interests are allying and old alliances are shifting like quicksand.

AS the debate on zoning in the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, continues, the pro-zoning Northern Elders and Leaders Forum, NELF, yesterday, met with key leaders of the Southeast with a resolve to back zoning.

As stakeholders con-tinue to consult and lobby for more support for the president, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan, ahead of next year’s presidential election, Ijaw leader and former Information Minister, Chief Edwin Clark, has hailed the commitment of the Cross River State Governor, Senator Liyel Imoke, to the project.

There was a mild drama at the Port Harcourt Magisterial Court, yesterday, as the arrested 12 factional leaders of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, in Rivers State were brought to the court premises and locked in an air-conditioned bus for over four hours, while officials frantically searched for a court room to arraign them.

Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria, PENGASSAN, and National Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers, NUPENG, workers of the Petroleum Training Institute, PTI, Delta State, yesterday stopped the second semester examination of the Institute, which commenced on Monday.

THE Arewa Consultative Forum, ACF, yesterday made a u-turn, asking all the political parties in the country to field northerners as presidential candidates in the 2011 elections.

THE National Economic Council, NEC, comprising the 36 state governors and key officials of the Federal Government with Vice President Namadi Sambo yesterday berated Nigerian banks over their inability to ensure the steady disbursement of the N200 billion agriculture loan to farmers.

Five persons, including a serving member of the National Youths Service Corps (NYSC) lost their lives in separate auto crashes in Lagos.

FORMER Federal Commissioner for Information and elder statesman, Chief Edwin Clark, has said that if there was zoning in the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, late Stella Obasanjo wouldn’t have begged him to appeal to the South South Governors, when they came out in 2003 to contest for the party’s primaries.